Wednesday, March 08, 2006

Oh yes it will.

I'm in Ukiah for a three-day class on culverts and I am not being sarcastic when I say that I haven't enjoyed a class like this since a four-hour session on rip-rap in September. Classes like this totally get my butch engineering side revved up, making me yearn for some green engineering paper, drawing in the upper right corner, calculations neatly aligned down the center.

The point of the class is ecologically sound designs for culverts that let fish through. You know, natural rock formations, native plants, stuff like that. I believe in the mission, but for me the best part of this class is the jargon. Oh man I love jargon. I love jargon all day long. My delight mounted as we covered headcuts, nick-points, baffles and perched outlets, but it peaked when we were told to take stream measurements down the thalweg. Oh I will. I'll never take measurements anywhere else.

I love the people too. They are all so sincere. I love the dorky ones who are so far gone they don't realize they are being obscure. I have a fondness for the old-school engineers, who would as happily build a freeway on-ramp as a fish passage project. I like the impatient fish biologists and ecologists, who live in frustration that engineers just don't understand. But my favorite today was the local county construction crews. Straddling their chairs, wearing sleeveless tanks, they made suggestions as we planned a design. When someone wondered how the new streambed would hold in high flows, one of 'em nodded and said "Concrete will be involved." I nearly swooned. So manly, so assertive. None of these fruity natural designs. Take me, big guy. I'm all yours.